


salt in the sand

by parhelions



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Nobility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 20:04:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20431679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parhelions/pseuds/parhelions
Summary: Yeosang opens up the floodgates for marriage.





	salt in the sand

One year, three months, and a thousand miles from the hills where the war ended for good, Seonghwa galloped through the gatehouse of the Kangs with half a dozen knights in tow. 

It was a tiny procession, compared to the camps around the palace. Nobles have flocked to the coast, traveling in great gilded carriages and silk palanquins surrounded by ranks of servants and guards, banners aglitter. Those not seeking to court the young lord were there to bask in the revelry—a wedding meant feasts and dances and yachts on the bay, a forgetting of the war, a glimpse of the famed beauty of the heir apparent. The inns were packed; the stables were full. 

The city by the sea teemed with noise once more. 

Yeosang did not hear about Seonghwa, at first. His hall was a whirlwind in itself, people buzzing about to make it into something semi-respectable. He spent the morning beating the dust out of the tapestries, being lifted (and almost dropped) by San to repair the chipped marble creatures on the pillars and doors, then dunked into a chair and manhandled into staying still as Wooyoung dabbed powder on his face to hide the circles under his eyes. 

“Relax,” San coaxed presently, standing on one side of the dais. “You look like you’re about to puke.”

“If you do, do it on him,” Wooyoung quipped from his other side. 

“You’re both so helpful,” Yeosang said. At the guard’s signal, a murmur rippled through the rest of his court. He straightened his back, steeling himself for the first suitor to enter. 

Their faces passed in a haze. A string of lords and ladies, governors and heiresses in finery. He received greatswords and spiked shields he possibly couldn't lift; velvet capes and jeweled goblets; longbows and saddles and a beautiful set of goose-fletched arrows that unfortunately came from a lecherous lord who undressed Yeosang with his eyes. He was complimented on his palace, his city, his face; given condolences on his older siblings, lost during the siege. A few he recognized from the war, marked with their own scars. 

Yeosang spoke, playing the gracious lord to all. San and Wooyoung scritched their quills across parchment, swapping notes with the other advisors between sessions. If anyone frowned on him having Wooyoung, a commonborn physician, and San, the disowned son of a river lord, on his council, they had the sense to conceal it. 

At midday, the herald announced a general from the west. 

It did not sink in, for a moment, that the noble of the woodlands striding up his hall was_ Seonghwa_, the boy he’d fought beside, pitched tents on hard earth with, forded rivers in piercing sleet. The last time they’d seen each other, face to face, had been months ago, at Hongjoong’s coronation, but they wrote regularly, his last letter arriving a scarce week ago, so _why_— 

Behind him, Wooyoung and San had stopped writing. 

Seonghwa pulled the cloth off his parcel, revealing a leather-bound book. He knelt, holding it out for Yeosang to take. Asked the question blank-faced, courteous, with an ending scrape of hesitance: _if you’ll have me._

*

Yeosang was seventeen when he crossed swords with Seonghwa in the training camp—two bony boys sweating like pigs in summer, third or fourth children shipped off to win their houses battle-glory. Though he ended up with a mouthful of soil, one meal shared that evening (Seonghwa insisted it had been cabbage stew, Yeosang remembered boiled yam) turned into a hundred more, sometimes warmed by a fire, sometimes without a word being said. 

Kings and queens fell. Mountains were gained and lost. Great spouts of blood soaked the earth, crows wheeled the skies. Seonghwa rose from corporal to captain to general, Yeosang leading the archers behind him over fields of carrion. 

At twenty-two, Yeosang still dreamt with his bow in his hand, some nights. 

*

The king attended their wedding, to no one’s surprise. The city swelled to its brim, merchants hauling their wares to the markets, poets and singers squeezed into the taverns and theaters for a chance of extra patronage. The nights were filled with cookfires, lute and fiddle, red-lanterned ships off the quay. 

With Hongjoong came Yunho and Mingi, towering armored knights flanking the king. Jongho, who became a bard after the war, melted out of the woodwork, a violin strapped to his back. He belted out old and new songs after their reunion supper, sneaking in a sappy ballad dedicated to Seonghwa and Yeosang’s impending union to which they threw cushions at him while Mingi snorted out half his drink and the rest of them clutched their stomachs on the floor. 

_It felt like home._ Yeosang hid his grin in a sip of wine. 

Across from him, Seonghwa smiled drowsily and sipped from his own glass. He had discarded the formalities since Yeosang’s tour of the grounds, turning curious eyes on the sights of the palace, its lagoons and corridors that would become his home. Seonghwa’s aunt, Lady Park, had claimed the woodland seat, he told him. The rest of the Parks had scurried off to make their own matches before she did it for them. 

“I didn’t think you would accept,” Seonghwa had admitted. They had been walking the parapets to inspect the lingering damage. The palace had changed hands twice during the war, with a whole wing not yet scoured of its pillaging.

“Why?” Yeosang had asked, surprised. His thoughts of late had a rhythm to them: the Parks kept a plentiful province, acres of fertile soil, more than enough to heal the eastern seaboard. A tie between their houses meant certain reinforcements, if another invasion from the sea should come. Seonghwa wasn’t cruel or greedy or controlling; there were far worse things than marrying a friend. “You’re you. I know you, and we know you. And - you have the resources, which we need.” The words sat heavy on his tongue, but he would not hide them. 

“So did the others. You could’ve been swimming in gold,” Seonghwa countered, undaunted. He poked at Yeosang’s cheek. “This face could launch a thousand ships.”

And Yeosang had spluttered, caught between giving in to the flush rising up his nape and sweeping the compliment aside.

Pine logs were lit against the autumn chill. Their motley circle piled before the sweet-smelling fire as in a camp, except tonight they were clean and full, with a roof over their heads, no battle waiting at dawn. Yeosang settled between San and Seonghwa on the settee, the harvest moon glowing as a new penny beyond. 

“Go easy on each other, alright?” Hongjoong said teasingly, unfolding his woolen blanket. “I don’t want to have to mediate on another argument between noble houses a year from now.”

Yeosang’s heart gave a lurch. He had leaned on his—his betrothed without a second thought, though Seonghwa did not seem to mind. 

“I think they know,” Yunho chipped in. “They’ve always been the calm ones.”

“Compared to you all, that’s not saying anything,” Seonghwa drawled, eyes closed.

San made an indignant noise, eliciting a chorus of scoffing and shushing. 

As Hongjoong recounted lyrics from a musical he’d disguised himself into, Wooyoung turned and patted San’s knee in solace. The last Yeosang saw, they played a game of chess each night, cross-legged on Wooyoung’s bed as the candles burned to stumps. If that was the latest outlet for their perpetual tension, manifested from even before San had left his father’s court, according to Mingi, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. 

He tipped his head back, sinking into the pile of cushions, hyperaware that he brushed against Seonghwa’s side with every motion they took. The elder’s dark hair fell over his eyes, making him look softer, younger. Yeosang watched his skin flicker in time with the flames. 

*

In the style of his province, he and Seonghwa were married in the sea god’s temple—rosy arched windows, stairs curved as shells, the morning crowned with light. A crush of people bracketed the sandbar on either shore. Their cheers reached a fever pitch as each groom stepped down in his heavy robes, embroidered with the flora and birds of his home province. 

“It’s because of you two,” Hongjoong whispered at the turnout, smile knowing, and the procession swept Yeosang away before he could ask him to elaborate. Besides the assigned court painter, several others arrived to capture the event with their own hand, along with more bards and dancers than they knew what to do with. Distant relatives were in the audience, pasty cousins and dowagers he had not seen since childhood, currying favor for their children to be named heir once it was apparent Yeosang would not have his own. 

Seonghwa recited his vows, then Yeosang. _To love and to cherish._ His mouth felt crooked, mishappen, in saying them, but he saw it through. His people would have plenty to eat this winter. 

The celebration stretched into the night. Hongjoong gifted them casks of wines and jars of preserves, the peaches baked into fluffed pastries by dinnertime. The newlyweds took their obligatory spin around the ballroom, stiff-limbed and awkward, none of their usual grace filtering through.

Yeosang was relieved to finally stand on the dais, Seonghwa beside him, receiving the guests with their well wishes, masks of formality in place, playing to their oily simpering and honesty alike. 

It was all surreal. A coldness seeped into Yeosang’s feet, prickling his ankles. 

The twelfth hour struck, and one last cheer—drunker, bawdier—went up. Seonghwa, apologies swimming behind his closed-off expression, held out his hand for Yeosang to take. They strode out, every inch a regal pair, and headed up the steps in silence. The din of the hall faded behind them. 

Their chamber was atop the north wing, rebuilt where the previous Lords and Ladies of the Shore had lived. It was the same place as it had been in Yeosang’s childhood—the same flagstones, the same mullioned windows, the openings for doors. Their innards had been scooped out; their paper panels had been burned and pierced by arrowhead and gutted. A new marble block, turtle and stag etched onto its pale face, shone on the mantelpiece. The scorch marks have vanished. The canopied bed and its pillows were limned with the full moon, shapes foreign in the glow. 

He heard the hush of the sea on the shore, the door swinging shut behind them with an airless thump. 

The rustle of fabric as Seonghwa turned to face him. 

Yeosang let go of his hand. 

If this had been a marriage of love, they would kiss, now, divest themselves of their wedding clothes and tumble into bed, hands over each other. Neither of them were unfamiliar to fooling around with other people in the years past, but a tiny part of him still yearned to be special to someone, a wick of hope he must have carried. To be in love. To make love. 

It was impossible; he had sealed himself in pragmatism. _ Plenty of heirs went through it,_ he chided himself, angry, at a loss. A small trade to keep his province safe, smooth the creases from its land. Prevent more needless bloodshed. _ You opened your gates. This is your duty, loveless as it is._

“You’re shaking,” Seonghwa murmured. 

The spell broke. 

Yeosang blinked; his pupils had adjusted to the darkness. Seonghwa was peering at him, concerned. A thumb grazed his wrist. 

“I’m sorry,” Yeosang said, throat dry.

“For what?” Seonghwa asked. 

_ For being ungrateful, for not seeing sooner._ His husband—his friend—wouldn’t touch him if he didn’t want it, if he would never want it for the rest of their days. He had not expected anything of the sort from Yeosang—they were both their own lords in this palace and could leave highborn duties at the stoop. 

“For going through with this.” Testing the waters, Yeosang took Seonghwa’s hand and linked their fingers together. A reassurance, borne from those marches through the snow, that first year. “You gave up your home to stay here.”

Seonghwa stared at him, the line of his mouth unconvinced, but he squeezed their joined hands together all the same. “You didn’t get me to do anything.” He looked away, his face lost in shadow. “This benefits me as much as it benefits you, like you said.”

“As it should. It’s—we’ve lost a lot.”

An exhale. “We have.”

“So you should go home when you want. You’re not bound anywhere—but I hope you’ll learn to like it here. We...don’t have golden apples, but there are other things to eat, I assure you.” 

With a close-lipped smile, Seonghwa touched Yeosang’s ring with his pointer finger. “I knew it. I married you for your figs, after all.”

“I thought so,” Yeosang said, tone equally light. 

He pulled him to the wardrobe and found a set of his nightclothes on a shelf, nudging Seonghwa to find his. They wrestled out of their robes on their own, changed, and crawled under the covers. Yeosang felt unwieldy in his limbs, big-boned and cumbersome, but the bed was large and the sea a soothing backdrop; a weariness washed over him before long. 

They fell asleep with their backs to each other, spines brushing. 

*

“Are you moping again?”

A basket slung over one arm, Wooyoung shut the gate behind him with a resolute clang. 

“I wasn’t moping,” Yeosang said, lifting up the book for him to see. 

Wooyoung strode closer, a question on his shifty face. His eyes widened. “Isn’t that what Seonghwa gave to you? For his proposal?”

Yeosang nodded. _The Ice Wyrm_ was a favorite in the central valley, Hongjoong and Yunho spinning inside jokes from it in the years past. Seonghwa had pestered Yeosang to find it in his letters, before that day he presented him with this copy, in its creamy paper and shards of agate inlaid into wing and snout on the cover. 

Two weeks since the betrothal and the scrambling for the wedding, he finally had a moment to sit down and open it, up here, where the smell of the sea was the strongest. Yeosang took in gulps of it, the clean brine turning his thoughts from the latest splinters in the nobility. If this was only a fraction of what Hongjoong dealt with, he didn't know how his shoulders were still whole.

A downtrodden path, littered with ruby leaves, wound its way up the face of the cliff. His parents’ ashes had been scattered at the top, as were his brother’s, his sister’s. His brother had ruled since Yeosang learned to walk, their parents no more than a fleeting memory at a particular fragrance, a flash of blue wave on a sunny day. The siege and the blockade had starved out the city and its palace when Yeosang was fighting his own battles a kingdom away. They had fought back, but their navy was smashed to pieces by some combination of betrayal and surprise, some of the surviving guards had told him.

“You didn’t have to give me that tea set, by the way,” Wooyoung said. He placed his basket beside a scraggly patch of herbs he’d managed to coax out of the rocky soil. “But thank you. I sent it with Jongho to my mother.”

“She would be doing me a favor. It would’ve gathered dust if I kept it.”

“I think I know your favorite gift, anyways.” At Yeosang’s unimpressed stare, Wooyoung grinned. “I know, I know, it’ll look bad if you gave away Seonghwa-hyung’s gift, but the sentiment is there.”

“It’s a good book,” Yeosang said.

“That’s what they all say.”

“Who is _ they_, I’m only speaking the truth—” 

“Ah, are you blushing? So cute—”

He ducked Wooyoung’s wiggly fingers, skipping to the opposite end of the garden. Wooyoung considered his own flimsy sandals and stuck out his tongue, turning back to his patch of basil. They would be boiled in squat kettles, ground into salves or poultices, his tower bursting with the scent for days. The stable workers often aired out their boots in the stairwell.

With Wooyoung’s hands tucked neatly into their gloves, Yeosang returned, placed the book on a tree stump, and squats on the soil beside him. 

“Where’s San?” he tried. At the stormy flash across Wooyoung’s face, he knew he had poked correctly. Wooyoung usually wanted to talk in his moods, but needed a push that it was alright to unburden himself. Though they had not met until his and Seonghwa’s general had fallen and the dredges of their force rallied under Hongjoong, then the crown prince, Wooyoung had quickly become someone he felt like he knew for twice as long. 

“Who knows,” Wooyoung mumbled. “Probably with the heir of Moss Rock - one of your many disappointed suitors.” 

Yeosang peered past the stretch of his smile. “A casual thing?”

“For now.”

“You really don’t think...”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. San could become a lord again, if he marries him. Or any of them.” Wooyoung lifted his knife to sink into a stalk of lemongrass, movements sure and measured as Yeosang had seen him set bones. His voice shook. “He could have his status back. He could have his noble friends again—his old life.”

Yeosang shook his head, trying to get him to_ see._ “He isn’t the kind of person to want friends who abandoned him when he lost his seat.” 

“He must miss other parts of it, though. He joined your court, after all.” Wooyoung stared down at the soil. “Your guests adore him, and he looks like—like a different person within it.”

“He joined us because I asked him to,” Yeosang said slowly, remembering_._ “I didn’t know anything about running a province and he did.” 

_ He also joined to buy more time to work up the courage and court you,_ Yeosang wanted to say, aching in Wooyoung’s place, but it wasn’t his secret to give. San and Wooyoung had followed him east and helped him bear the task of running a province, but they had followed each other as well, unbeknownst to the other.

“Plus, Hongjoong could have restored him any time he’d asked,” he added. “Made him lord with a parcel of land up north, or something. He truly doesn’t want to rule—you know that as well as anyone.” 

Wooyoung let his hands go limp in their gloves. He studied them, the pained downturn of his mouth gone slack. “I...only don't want to be left behind. Especially when my friends happen to be kings and lords.”

“You’re dumb. None of us can stitch people back together as you do.” Yeosang chopped at his shoulder. He wanted to bash both of their thick skulls in. “You won’t be forgotten. You both have a chance to be happy if you just open your eyes.” 

Wooyoung smiled at him, the wry humor back on his face. “So do you.” 

*

It was easy, cuddling with Seonghwa. Yeosang had always slept best in a huddle of bodies, in a tent full of soldiers prone to giggling and accusations of passed gas and everyone wearing all the furs they had. A snowstorm could whip up wailing gales outside, and their dog piles remained unflappable. The exhaustion of the day would disperse, gut to limb, draining out into the bedrock below.

And so he nestled in the crook of Seonghwa’s arms, or wrapped his own around the older’s middle, or relaxed into being held, all without revisiting the tenseness of their wedding night. He woke with their legs tangled together, more often than not. Felt the rise and fall of Seonghwa’s breaths in time with his own, those languid moments before either of them needed to get up. 

(If upon waking something dug into his back or he had his own unfortunate occurrence straining his trousers, they slipped away and took care of the problem alone, returning with pink ears but saying nothing about it. If either of them noticed the jar of clear gelatin Wooyoung or another apothecary had brewed up and placed in their bedside cabinet, they said nothing as well.)

The months after their wedding saw Lady Park’s pledges coming to fruition. Fish and barley for sugar beets, chicken eggs, cattle, the famed golden-spun apples of the woodlands. Copper for tin. White wine for red wine. Yeosang had played their game, and they filled his coffers. Emissaries from throughout the kingdom—Lord Kwon, Lady Shin, the twin princes of the shale canyons—arrived on their doorstep, seeking trade. Tales spread of harbors rising from the wreckage, sugar-white beaches cleaned of battle as if freed from a curse. Nobles who had hid behind their gates during the fighting strolled up to the palace without missing a beat, noses high. 

_ Like leeches,_ San half-joked, half-grumbled, angry for them. 

Seonghwa took on his share of governing, training soldiers at distant outposts and revising the military training in their musty tomes. If they had a free evening together, he and Yeosang ate in the alcove beside the kitchens, two bowls of fish stew and a loaf of black bread between them. The cook, who had known Yeosang since infancy, plied them with squares of strudel if he chanced upon them. Sometimes Wooyoung and San crashed in, doubling the sound level, having returned back to normal save for the lingering looks when the other wasn’t looking. 

One night, Seonghwa sliced an apple, shipped from his home, for Yeosang, its skin whorled like a skein of yarn. 

The next, Yeosang had them don their overcoats and led him through the gardens, blue-black in the twilight, and plucked figs fresh from a tree into Seonghwa’s open hands. 

They sat on the bench beneath the poplar, discussing crop yields, whale sightings, how Seonghwa’s sister had upset the Park matron and married her childhood friend, a minor duchess, snorting over age-old retellings until it was too cold to stay out. 

*

“Did you know there are horses with necks taller than trees?” Yeosang folded up Jongho’s latest letter and wedged it in his book for safekeeping. 

“Don’t talk my ears off when I’m about to go to sleep,” Seonghwa groused, though he was smiling, curled up on his side of the bed. His hair was damp from his bath. He had sparred with Eunji, the captain of the guard, and San earlier in the dusty courtyard, where the soldiers’ shouts of encouragement and the ringing of steel, largely from the San’s flashy sword moves, could be heard from inside.

“It’s not a story if I’ve never seen them.” Yeosang considered the streaks of lavender on the clouds. “And isn’t it too early to go to sleep?”

“Not if there’s nothing to do.” Seonghwa stifled a yawn, mashing his face into his pillow. “What mythical beasts has Jongho found now?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to disturb your beauty rest,” Yeosang teased, planting himself on the overstuffed ottoman before the window. His nightshirt hung a loose around his shoulders, the billowy sleeves dipping past his wrists; he must have grabbed Seonghwa’s by accident.

“Fine, be that way.” He rolled on his side to look at Yeosang, then seemed to startle, freezing for an instant before he gazed past him, to the dusk. Before Yeosang could dwell on it, he spoke up, “I read your draft of the infrastructure agreement, by the way. It looks good.”

“Considering the duke was breathing down my neck the whole time, I suppose it’s alright.” 

“It’s better than that. The Duke of the Peony Hall?”

“That’s him.”

“I’m amazed you got him to stop talking about his bred horses for that long.”

Yeosang laughed—it _had _been like pulling an oxcart through mud—and reached for his glass. His back popped in three different places. Standing rigid all day, playing the collected mediator to other nobles and their interests, had its own brand of monotony. “I could’ve pressed them for more quarries, though.” 

Seonghwa raised a brow. “But there would be less jobs on our side in the trade.”

“That’s what I was thinking, until Lady Jung brought up the iron we needed for their southern branch repairs.” He propped his cheek in the cup of his hand. “And before you say it, their estimates are on target so far. We couldn’t eke them out of more than a ton.”

“Except the Jungs slipped in a deal with Crab Island not too long ago.”

“Please, go on,” Yeosang said, the corners of his mouth tilting up. He was relieved that their teamwork was intact. Those wee hours poring over troop movements in a drafty tent had not disappeared, only changed forms.

Night descended, a slash of murky moon on water, and Yeosang blew out the candle. Fresh ink dried on a length of parchment for the next morning. He let himself be pulled into bed, breathless with how right it felt, Seonghwa’s chest flush against his back, the smell of the soap he used catching in his lungs. The last embers of the fire crackled in the hearth. Seonghwa’s breaths evened out, and Yeosang laid awake, staring at the play of shadows on the ceiling, restless for no discernable reason.

Something distinct—a speck of sand, a small shoot breaking through soil—shivered up his throat. A sensation of falling. 

*

Seonghwa, following a trail of bandits, left for the backwater towns. Yeosang, alone in his study, fidgeting, shooed out of Wooyoung’s cellar while a delicate tonic was being brewed, saddled up a horse and cut through the stretch of beach to the city. 

Eunji squinted down from her balcony atop the gatehouse, calico cat perched on one arm, but didn't stop him as he rode past. The sea tossed its gray heads, the gulls swooped and dove. An icy wind stung his cheeks, clearing the sticky memories in his mind, his less than innocent dreams as of late—no more than the feeling of hands on his hips, faceless lips on his neck, being taken from behind, panting, desperate, into the space of a dream-pillow. It was to be expected: he hadn't slept with anyone in one, two years. He could only hope he didn't wake Seonghwa with a moan or worse, rut against him in his sleep. 

Pulling his hood low over his head, Yeosang merged into the crowd at the gate. No one paid him a second glance in his burlap cloak and dark winter layers. The streets glittered with frost, the first of the season; it would be the solstice soon. The merchant council’s last inventories showed plenty to throw a proper festival with, and he took in the balconies dripping with glass shaped like icicles, painted stalls bursting with anchovies and rum cakes and candied ginger Yunho and Hongjoong were partial to. 

He sought out the drying houses and the granaries, surreptitiously picking his way through the din of workers calling out to one another. The smell of woodsmoke was heavy in the air. The river was backed up with a slurry of goods emblazoned with the Park stag, the Kwon double eagles, the Lee amaryllis, crates and livestock being loaded and unloaded. 

He bought himself a rum cake, hot in his hands, and parcels of ginger to send to the high castle out west, and watched the boats drift past. There was the feeling akin to cresting a steep hill, a receding of his fears, ever present, in the hollow of his chest. He had not miserably failed. Not yet. His province had not starved, the truth laid before his eyes at this very instant. 

On the way back, a chance rain guzzled down. 

*

“You idiot,” Wooyoung reiterated, tipping another pail of tepid water over his head without warning.

“I felt fine,” Yeosang insisted, trembling. He had been drenched on a day shy of freezing and stayed too long in his wet clothes, absently going about his evening as usual. In the morning his steward had found him unresponsive, delirious with fever. 

“I’m guessing that past tense will stay for a while,” San said somewhere near the doorway, and Yeosang didn't have the energy to lift his head and glare at him. 

He dried and dressed himself, falling into the bed after a blur of winding stone steps. Wooyoung pressed a damp tea towel to his forehead, muttering something like _make sure he rests_ to San, and left a pitcher of honey water on the side table. At Yeosang’s behest, San attempted to catch him up on the nobles that arrived, but their names and agendas ran together and he called it quits after one coughing fit too many. He apologized for having San play lord, and might’ve thanked him one time too many. 

(This earned him a coo and a get well soon, but not _too _soon, because one could get used to being appreciated.)

There were snatches of time when Wooyoung came in to feel his forehead or press a cup of water into his hands or, more memorably, slap a handkerchief of crushed mustard seed to his chest and let it burn. In those brief half-waking moments before he goes back to sleep, Yeosang lost himself in the stripes of his shirt, hot then cold, spots dancing behind his eyes. Sometimes he reached for the other side of the bed, then stopped himself. 

It was either dawn or dusk when he woke up next.

Yeosang blinked, dust motes swirling in the faint light. The Seonghwa-shaped shadow on the armchair did not disappear. He sneezed, and Seonghwa opened his eyes. He had not been asleep. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, padding over to sit on the mattress next to his socked feet. 

“Not so good. But better,” Yeosang rasped. A cool sweat sat on the back of his neck; his fever has not yet broken. 

“Now that I’m here?” 

_ Yes. _“For that, I want to throw a glass at you.”

Seonghwa huffed out a laugh. “Drink all of it first, though. It’ll be easier to mop up.” He reached to pour more water, a stripe of bandage peeking out from under his sleeve. Knowing Seonghwa, the wound beneath was already cleaned and daubed with the appropriate ointment. 

Neither of them went to sleep. Yeosang, feeling guilty at having hacked and sweated all over the sheets, mentioned there were plenty of spare rooms, to which Seonghwa brought up the time Yeosang had taken care of him during a bout of camp dysentery, riding beside the plodding cart of miserable soldiers as Seonghwa heaved into his waiting bucket. 

“No one’s counting, I did it because I wanted to,” Yeosang protested, and Seonghwa rolled his eyes: _Why do you think I’m here now?_

On the same vein as _ The Ice Wyrm_, Seonghwa strode into his study and returned with _Emerald Dances_ off his shelf, reading to Yeosang. The places where ancient magic resided thrilled him, doubly so when his cooked brain easily pictured the sheets of carved ice like buildings, the serpents glinting like plate armor. Seonghwa did the impressions of the gods and goddesses horribly, pitched voice filling the quiet expanse of their chambers. 

Rain tapped the window panes, and Yeosang hid his face under the blanket after pretending to cringe for the umpteenth time. He swatted at the book, putting on his best pout. Seonghwa held the leather tome out of reach, eyes triumphant, looking down at Yeosang with unadulterated fondness. A small smile spread across his face.

_ Oh,_ Yeosang thought. The realization was clear as a bell. 

It was as if he was seeing him for the first time even though they’ve known each other for years. Seonghwa was handsome, handsome as he’d always been, handsome in ways that Yeosang was only beginning to dwell on. 

*

“You sleep with Seonghwa but you don’t—” San punctuated this with a waggle of his eyebrows. “_—sleep_ with him.”

“Right,” Yeosang deadpanned, unwilling to have this conversation. He brushed snow and leaves off the bench. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“First, you’re this uptight because you haven’t gotten any for a while. You’re moody.” San threw himself down beside him, shaking his head.

“Am not. In fact, forget I said—”

“Are too.” 

“I’m perfectly calm.”

“On some days, perhaps. But explain the pecan tart incident.”

“There were _ants _crawling all over it - it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“And that warranted fuming at your poor advisor for a whole day.”

“I wasn’t fuming, and Lady Jung showed up without notice that day. I was busy, in case you didn’t notice.” He didn't intend for the petulance to creep in his voice, and was about to suggest discussing the council meeting like they originally set out to do, but San pounced on it.

“See? This is what I mean.” He pointed a smug finger at Yeosang’s face. “The cracks are already showing. It’s my job to stop this before it ends in a rule of a tyrant. The people of the shore will thank me.”

“Who’s thanking who?” Wooyoung came up the side of the garden, scrolls tucked under one arm. They scooted over on the bench. 

“Yeosang will, after he realizes that Seonghwa wants him and they take the appropriate action to rid themselves of unnecessary stress.”

Maddeningly, Wooyoung inclined his head a thoughtful nod instead of taking Yeosang’s side. “A physician up north has written about how pressure makes people more prone to infectious diseases. And you know how _relaxing_ it can be.”

Yeosang pushed at his elbow. “You can’t be serious. Wouldn’t that mean - actually, no, I don’t want to hear it.” 

Wooyoung and San grinned at each other, eyes shining, before quickly looking away. Yeosang was surprised their necks didn't snap. They were back to stilted silences after the winter solstice, which Yeosang ended up missing, though they and Seonghwa had bundled him up, customary gauzy cloak thrown on top, and tossed blazing candles off the cliff into the sea below. After, Seonghwa saw Yeosang back inside while the two of them, having grown up in the riverlands, went into the forest for their own moss-covered shrine, where one or both of them had most likely did or said something stupid in that time frame. 

San cleared his throat. “You are sexually frustrated. And you have someone perfectly willing to resolve that. So why not have your ass eaten and be a healthy, satisfied young man?”

Yeosang spluttered, a blush spreading from his neck up to his face. He crunched a twig beneath his boot. “I doubt he’s ‘perfectly willing’ to—” An inappropriate image; he couldn't even finish that sentence. “What we have is fine. There’s no need to make such conclusions.”

“There are other ways marriages of convenience or arranged ones play out,” San mused, scratching his chin. “You two could come to a mutual agreement to quietly see other people. It’s not uncommon among nobility, having a concubine.”

“I—I know that.”

“You hate the idea, don’t you?”

Yeosang shuffled his feet together, collecting a melting heap of snow in the middle. Seonghwa with a lover. Him with a lover. The pit of his stomach simmered unpleasantly. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Wooyoung asked, a mix of concern and bemusement in his expression.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Yeosang insisted, and vaguely felt like he was lying through his teeth. “Can we please go back to work?”

San uncapped his inkwell, but left the smirk on his face. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, my lord.” 

*

“The barley has been planted, and the peas too. They haven’t had any bandit attacks since twelfthmonth.”

“That’s good.”

“Captain Hirai has recruited extra soldiers along the road, so we can adjust the rotations here - and here.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Seonghwa flipped the sheaf of parchment over, quill hovering above the orderly rows of his printed characters. “And the Earl of the Crocuses observed more shepherds in - you’re falling asleep on me, aren’t you?”

Caught, Yeosang blinked his last yawn out of his eyes. He was perched on a stool in Seonghwa’s study, the candelabras winking low, the rush of the sea outside lulling him into a stupor.

“We should take a break.” Yeosang sighed in agreement, and Seonghwa set down his quill and leaned back in his chair, lacquered wood matching the desk propped below the window. The large marble table at the center of the room was for organizing his thoughts, maps and field reports held down by glass weights across its well-worn face. Personal letters, bundles of them tied with bits of twine, were kept in a chest beside his bookshelves. Yeosang admired his dedication to having a system.

He had half a mind at asking if Seonghwa would like his own bed in his study, or if he would prefer it if Yeosang slept apart from him in his own across the hall, but didn't. He would miss having him close by, waking up with their limbs twined each morning, selfish as it was, and the servants would talk. Though the chambermaids would have noticed the state of their sheets—or lack of—by now. He hoped none of craftier lords' twittering birds have caught wind of it, spun it into a potential wedge between their alliance. 

“How is Sihyeon?” Yeosang asked, distancing himself from his thoughts. Seonghwa’s sister had settled on the fringes of the neighboring province with her new wife. Seonghwa had visited shortly after checking the scattered keeps around the area. 

“She’s well. Thrilled, in fact,” Seonghwa said. He picked a dried fig from the bowl and spun it from its stem. “They both send their greetings to you. Duchess Wang genuinely hopes to seek an allyship, I believe.”

“Let’s pen a letter when we get a chance, then,” Yeosang said, cheered at Seonghwa’s buoyant relief—his remaining family hadn't scattered to the far corners of the kingdom, at least. Yeosang’s own siblings had been too old and distant, covetous of their positions, for him to have been close with them, but the Parks had kept a warmer household.

“Speaking of letters, Mingi says there’s a painting of us going up as the showpiece for an auction.”

Yeosang made a face. “Maybe it’s the artistic style they’re going for?”

“Apparently a guild is weaving a tapestry with our wedding in a panel, too. It’s a ‘commemoration of the post-war flowers,’ whatever that means.” 

Yeosang tried to imagine the scene. “For once, I’m glad we’re far away from the capital. I would die cringing.”

Mouth full of fig, Seonghwa thumbed Yeosang’s elbow in accord. He was touchy at times like these, when it was only the two of them tying the loose ends of the day’s work. His bangs were down, soft looking, and Yeosang was about to chase the touch and sleepily pitch into his lap when Seonghwa made a noise of panic and caught him by his elbows. 

“Sorry, I - you—”

Yeosang glanced up. Seonghwa’s face was pinched blank, as whenever he was under duress. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing.” After a beat of silence, Seonghwa let him go. His gaze snapped upwards. “You—surprised me, that’s all.”

The moment hung, slack-jawed, as both of them returned their limbs into their proper seats. Yeosang was perplexed—he had just bathed, his clothes were fresh, the others crawled into each other’s spaces all the time. Then he got a brief flash of sitting in _Seonghwa’s_ lap under devolved circumstances, kissing like their lives depended on it, hands on the small of his back, sliding lower and—

That definitely couldn't be the reason: Seonghwa being bothered in _that_ way about him. 

He was overthinking; a little stung. All Seonghwa wanted from him is some personal space like a normal human being. Curse Wooyoung and San for poisoning his rational thoughts.

And so he asked about the barley and the shepherds, picking up his quill with forced nonchalance. Seonghwa was quick to answer him, seemingly relieved at the change in topic as well.

*

Spring arrived, the days fuller, an added floral layer to the sea air. 

Mingi and Yunho rode through the thaw to visit, the palace echoing with their cackling laughter for a fortnight. Hongjoong was chained to the throne for the foreseeable future, and could not come. Yeosang missed him, resentful that the realm heaped troubles on his capable hyung without an utterance of thanks. 

He was a diligent correspondent, at least; their letters ramble on about an assortment of details—a stray dog, an unusual fountain, Hongjoong’s progress with a harpsichord, a quip here and there about the dreary politics of court life. Hongjoong was a keen listener, and found odd requests like the tint of the ocean, no repeats, once per day for a month, to distract Yeosang when he sensed him getting caught up in the current from miles away. On his walks on the beach, Yeosang found tiny seashells and stones and pebbles and slipped them into the envelopes. 

This latest letter, though, he could not seem to write. 

_I have persistent thoughts about kissing my lord husband, who happens to be one of your oldest friends,_ his quill was poised to say. The royal family had spent many a summer in the Parks’ shaded forest estate. _And his face. And his stupid jokes. And how he looks at me—_

Instead, he wrote, _ We’re all doing fine, and I hope you get some rest—_The powder blue walls of his study stared back at him. _ Don't let Yunho and Mingi eat all the candied ginger. Your Supreme Royal Highness can’t forget about us._

*

His dreams continued to alternate between shooting fantastical beasts out of the sky and the usual filthy happenings. Except the hair he gripped tight dissolved into an exact shade of copper, one he saw many mornings lit by the watery dawn. His dream-lover took on a voice he knows too well. The anonymous hold on his hips narrowed into a wink of cold of a ring. Yeosang would jolt awake, heart thumping, dazed and wondering what it would be like if Seonghwa lifted him onto his wide marble table, scattering his neatly laid maps and plans, and had his way with him. 

*

One of the shore’s lesser lords invited them to a ball, a ceremonious handing off of titles to his son. As they had no wish to snub him or his sturdy fleet of ships, Yeosang and Seonghwa packed a trunk of clothes and set out to his estate, scarves wound up to their noses. 

At sunset, the carriage in front of them clattered to a halt. The guards bowed low and waved them into the ornate bowels of Lord Lee’s home. A serving boy showed them to their room, where they washed their faces and hands in a basin of crystal, rose hips bobbing on the surface. 

Yeosang stretched his legs and peeked out the heavy curtains, trying to identify people from the tops of their heads. He spotted one of his cousins, then Lady Jung’s sister. An elderly couple he thought was Duchess Hong and her wife hobbled up the front steps, faces turned toward each other against the blasts of wind. 

He turned, with a small jump of his heart, to see Seonghwa out of his shirt, rummaging through his pack, back lean and grooved. He scrambled back to the window seat as if nothing had happened. 

Lord Lee himself fetched them to the ballroom, balder and grayer than Yeosang remembered him. He made jolly conversation about how the children of days past had grown up, slapping their backs (“_don’t steal the show away from us, now!_”) before another noble called him away. 

They found their council, San whining at the list of apothecary ingredients that Wooyoung, acting as castellan back home, had given him for the southern shore, and dispersed with nothing amiss. Yeosang and Seonghwa danced a few songs for the sake of it, steps flowing where their wedding had been stiff, all eyes having been upon them then. Tonight, the gloved hand on Yeosang’s waist was gentle, fabric on fabric. He was able to tether himself to the melodies without thinking. 

A tipsy San pulled them into the adjoining hall, steaming with tureens and folds of meat. He and Seonghwa tried a bit of everything, olives and cubed cheeses and mussels cooked in six different ways. They pooled their collective knowledge—and gossip—on the other party guests, before circling around the decor. 

“It’s supposed to be a foot, look at the big toe.”

Yeosang squinted at the ice sculpture shimmering beneath the chandelier. “It’s a two-handed axe.”

“Wouldn’t that be sort of violent for this atmosphere?” 

“And a foot is any less unsanitary?” 

Seonghwa let out a low laugh, and a starburst of warmth bubbled up Yeosang’s throat. He darted another glance at him: Seonghwa looked unfair this evening, in his buttoned coat and silk cravat, hair combed back to reveal his forehead. He could have been a prince out of a storybook. 

They milled around the next room for a while, craning to look at the chandeliers there. A voice from behind them cut through the din. “Seonghwa?”

Seonghwa turned. “Oh, it’s Kwangsik-hyung,” he named, adjusting his stance and peeking behind the man. “And Jiyoo and Dongju.”

“And Yeosang-gukgong,” Kwangsik said, inclining his glossy head of hair to Yeosang.

They settled at one of the trestle tables, reminiscing about the days past, ones in the tourneys and races before the war. Yeosang recalled Kwangsik from the army, the heir to a house up north, a captain deft with a shield and spear. Delicate cheekbones, a swanlike neck. An untroubled smoothness to his manners. He gazed at Seonghwa with a certain hunger in his eyes, trailing him for a few seconds too long even when someone else spoke. 

It was far from the first time Yeosang had seen someone look at Seonghwa like that, in the army or on the streets of a middling town. Did Kwangsik constitute a warm body like Yeosang was on cold winter nights? Was he someone Seonghwa would have married if he had the choice, if he had been heir to the Parks’ seat? 

_ Why do you care?_

Lord Lee called the ballroom to attention. A short, kind speech, then the title passed over to the radiant son and his wife to a slew of applause. The circlet, gleaming bronze, fit his head perfectly, without a hitch. 

They sat back down. A touch on his knee startled him out of his reverie. Yeosang turned and met Seonghwa’s eyes, the questioning turn of his mouth. Across the table, Jiyoo launched into a tale of a boar hunt, the others engrossed. 

Hesitantly, Yeosang found Seonghwa’s hand beneath the table, palm flat on his knuckles, brushing against the cool white gold of his wedding ring. He turned the band between his thumb and forefinger, felt the solidness of it, heart loud in his ears. He held his hand in his own, squeezing lightly. 

Seonghwa squeezed back. 

*

Seonghwa’s nineteenth birthday had been a ghastly occurrence. The tent poles sank into patches of squelching mud, the blowflies buzzing in dense clouds. Finding a spot to urinate became a minor adventure, one wrong step meaning an shin-deep plunge in the swamp’s shadowy footholds. They were to hold the clearing at all costs, expect an attack in any direction, but the week crawled by in crickety silence, the sound of dripping water marking time.

The soldiers found ways to occupy themselves. Seonghwa took to foraging the undergrowth for blackberries and honeysuckle blossoms. He was a better cook than any of them, could take a handful of the physicians’ approved mushrooms and a few rations of dry gruel and stir the pot into a savory stew, its aroma wafting throughout the camp. 

For his birthday—he’d overheard some of the woodland soldiers joking and singing—Yeosang gifted Seonghwa a tin of overcooked peas, straining not to laugh. A few months later, Seonghwa repaid him with a hard crust of bread. It became as a tradition—a mug of water with a kernel of corn in it, a fish tail, two chestnuts burnt on the sides. They had skipped last year, being apart, and penned a flowery description of what they would have gotten instead. 

“You’re so nauseatingly in love,” San said, watching Yeosang peel a bowl of apples. “If you weren’t already married, I’d tell to. Ha.”

“If you’re nice, you might get a tart as well,” Yeosang intoned, not looking up. 

“Do I get one?” Wooyoung piped up from his corner. His own cutting board was disappearing beneath the piles of diced roots and flowers. 

“Of course.”

“I can hear the lie in that.”

Yeosang hummed to himself, ignoring Wooyoung’s plaintive whines. He checked that no one was out in the path to the tower and picked up the next apple, testing its firmness. He hoped he could catch Seonghwa this week—it was already several days late, his birthday having passed when they were apart on the road. Their faces had been twin mirrors of exhaustion last night, when they had finally met at home from grappling with floods at the river’s mouth and chasing a line of murders further inland. 

“Also, you didn’t deny it,” San pointed out, dimpling. “Don’t think you can deflect that easily.”

_You would know all about that, would you_, Yeosang thought back, but didn't say aloud. 

“Seonghwa-hyung mentioned meeting Kwangsik-hyung at the Lees’ home,” Wooyoung joined in. “How was that?” 

“How was what?”

“They were...you know. For a good year or so, during the war.” At Yeosang’s stilted confusion, San’s mischievous expression morphed into something gentler. He tensed. “You didn’t know.” San exchanged a significant glance with Wooyoung. “He didn’t know.”

“I knew he had other friends besides us. It was none of my business,” Yeosang said, forcing his shoulders into a shrug. Kwangsik’s pretty face floated forth. If he was honest with himself, he knew why the thought of them together bothered him so much: it had crept up on him, this tug toward Seonghwa being beyond physical attraction. 

He wanted to go to bed with him, and wanted to grow old with him. He wanted more lazy mornings and afternoons and nights, trite as it was, to see Seonghwa smile, feel Seonghwa’s mouth on his own. 

It shouldn’t have been so surprising. 

“I’ve never been in love before,” Yeosang admitted, insides pitching up a storm. Wooyoung gave a sympathetic wince. “Have you?” He strained to keep his face innocent of any conniving. 

Wooyoung blushed, and Yeosang mentally applauded him for his self-restraint in not glancing at San behind him. He played with a lock of leaves. “I...might have.”

"—Keonhee-hyung?” San blurted, marginally more awake now. 

“What? No! That was when we were _sixteen_, I don’t think that counts.”

San deflated. “Then who? Is...is this still ongoing?”

Wooyoung made a flustered sound, but doesn’t answer him. San drooped, a silent _oh_ parting his lips, and Yeosang almost retracted his statement, but with the needless glacial pace they’ve held—he held his tongue. 

“I didn’t think - it’s not important.” Wooyoung came to life, whirling to the oven and flinging a log inside with a loud thunk. The flames hissed, blown cherry-red. 

“Of course it is!” San left his perch atop the windowsill to step toward Wooyoung. “You’ve been my best friend since forever - tell me about this guy—”

Neither of them noticed Yeosang make his exit. 

*

The climbing roses have run wild. 

They spilled over the walls and wound over the hedges, heap in the sand-flecked bowl of the courtyard fountain. The Lord Kang three generations ago had had them planted at the north wing for their tenacity; their balcony was lost under their pale yellow froth. When Yeosang extracted himself from the last council meeting and headed up, Seonghwa was already there, leaning out. 

“Happy late birthday, hyung.” Yeosang gathered him in a back hug, leaning to hook his chin over his shoulder. One part of him instinctively relaxed in the proximity, but another part was nervous, fingertips going cool despite himself. _ It’s just Seonghwa,_ he reminded himself. _ It’s just Seonghwa._

“Thank you. But don’t prick yourself,” Seonghwa chided, twisting to look at him. He maneuvered them to the table where a lantern already glowed bright. Laid out were two cups of tea, two bowls of mackerel stew. The loaf of bread was already torn into chunks.

They ate, talking about their days, savoring the shared meal in the quiet. Yeosang brought out the platter of his spun apple tarts, half of which had already gone to Wooyoung and San—they _definitely_ hadn’t been playing chess when he knocked yesterday, both of them disheveled and sheepish, bruises blooming on San’s open collar, and Yeosang had been simultaneously scarred and elated for them.

“As if we didn’t see it coming,” Seonghwa said when he told him, laughing into his cup. He set it down, and peered curiously at the tarts. “This isn’t the overripe peach I was expecting.”

“Try one,” was all Yeosang said. The head cook had showed him how to do the glaze. He’d managed to replicate an approximation of it without burning the kitchen down, or even the bottom of the pan.

Seonghwa chewed, brows rising to his hairline. “You’re saying _you_ made these?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Yeosang mimed an arrow going through his heart, and smiled. “I wanted to do something for you this year, even if it's not much. As thanks for staying with me, and doing so much for my people. It—means a lot.”

“They’re mine, too.” Seonghwa stared out into the roses, the twilit garden stretching beyond. “And I should be thanking _you_, for marrying me.” Seonghwa’s gaze swiveled back to him. It was warm, but tinged with something sad, unbelieving. 

Before he could stop and think, Yeosang reached out to touch his cheek, needing to give comfort. Erase whatever caused his husband pain. 

Seonghwa startled. 

Yeosang jerked back.

“I’m—”

“Ah, no, it’s me,” Yeosang hastily apologized. He hated that he was stung, again. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m clingy when I’m tired - but you can tell me to back off.”

“No, it’s not - Yeosang-ah, you know...” Seonghwa trailed off, expressionless. 

Heart pounding, Yeosang waited for him to continue. Seonghwa looks at the roses, then back at him, weighing his words. _ I’ve noticed how you feel, but..._ he would say, and Yeosang would have flee to nurse his heartbreak in peace. _I can’t give you what you want._

Finally, he said, “You know that you’re beautiful, right?”

“What?” Yeosang looked up, hardly daring to hope, scouring for clues on Seonghwa’s blank face. His looks had garnered acknowledgement from him before, a teasing remark here and there, but he had never been this serious. 

“I’m flattered, hyung, but you’re beautiful, too,” he tried for a middle ground, wincing at how flat his voice came out. 

Seonghwa touched his teacup, but didn't drink. He swallowed. “That’s—not what I meant.” 

“Then...”

Frustrated, he rose from his chair to crouch at Seonghwa’s side, dropping his head to rest on the bend of Seonghwa’s knees, exhaling when Seonghwa threaded a hand through the short hairs of his nape. They looked at each other, searching and searching. Yeosang couldn’t be reading him wrong. Not that wrong. They had been holding back, thinking they were shielding the other from unpleasant, unwanted feelings outside the bounds of friendship. It had been the opposite, obvious in hindsight. 

Still, it was like part of a dream when Seonghwa took a breath, leaned in, and kissed him sweetly. 

It was not a dream, how solid the table was against Yeosang’s back when he climbed, haphazard, into Seonghwa’s lap and their lips met again, an outpouring of desire. Seonghwa’s mouth was firm against his own; Yeosang curled his arms around his shoulders, gasping, and Seonghwa held him tight at the waist, fingertips pressing into the bumps of his shoulder blades. A flick of a tongue. Seonghwa moved his hands lower to trace his spine, the space before the swell of his ass.

They separated for air. Yeosang leaned in and nipped lightly at the soft skin at Seonghwa’s neck, eliciting a breath of laughter as he grazed a ticklish spot. They stumbled back into their bedchamber, kicking off their slippers behind them. The sunset had scattered, a deluge of rosy hues. 

"I’ve loved you for years,” Seonghwa said, words hushed in the waning light.

“Since when?” 

“Since before the treaty was signed.”

Yeosang closed his eyes. He was absolutely buoyant, dizzy. His voice left as a croak. “I'm sorry it took me so long to catch up.” 

Seonghwa shook his head and caught him by his chin, kissing him again. “When I heard you were offering your hand for marriage,” he leaned back so they could see each other properly, “I had to try and see you. It was selfish of me, I know.”

Yeosang hummed, low in his throat, reeling from all the kisses. “Then I’m glad you were selfish.” 

He found Seonghwa’s cheek, and this time, Seonghwa leaned into his touch. They fell into the bed, kissing languidly, shivering as layers of clothing were parted and removed. Seonghwa reached up for the laces of Yeosang’s shirt, a question in his eyes that Yeosang answered by tugging them free himself, heated in his own skin. 

Seonghwa pushed him down and kissed a path up his exposed back, lips ghosting on the arrow scars there, the puckered skin of an old sword slash, murmuring on how gorgeous he was, how long he’d wanted him. 

Yeosang arched at his touch and his words, hands scrabbling for purchase on the wooden slats lining the headboard. His breaths came out shallow. Somewhere in between he tumbled onto his back again, whining as Seonghwa mouthed at his collarbones (_“you were wearing my shirt that night, what was I supposed to think—”_), and then they're groping and grinding in a sloppy rhythm, naked atop the rumpled sheets. 

Neither of them lasted long. 

*

Another memory: a moonlit lake, the autumn forest stripped of its flame in the darkness. 

It had been toward the end of the war, although they did not know that. The skirmish that afternoon had been bloody, officers among the body count, Mingi limping out of the fray, San caught by a poisoned blade. 

After his watch, Yeosang had skipped stones with Seonghwa by the lake. The mantle of General Park had been shed for the weighted hunch of exhaustion, choked by the fear of what might have been, what would come next. They talked of their homes. Whole, safe places. A hidden cove, a clearing in the forest, keeping the wild realities at bay. For an hour there was only the plink of stones and the howling of wolves, bare conversations—it returned to him now, drawing a bath for them in this quiet safe night. 

“I didn’t know what else to say,” Yeosang admitted, testing the bricks for warmth. The bathwater rippled as they stepped in, loose-limbed and glowing. He could spot the beginnings of a bruise on his collarbone.

“Neither did I.” Seonghwa cupped handfuls of water onto his hair, mussed from Yeosang's fingers. "Do you remember what you said to me, when I said I had never seen the ocean?"

Yeosang remembered. "'I’ll take you there.'” He had been proud he had gotten Seonghwa to crack half a smile, then. _I'll hold you to that, Yeosang-ah._

"I was already in love with you then, but you shook me again." Seonghwa smiled ruefully. "It was unfair." 

Even with the sex they just had, Yeosang moved to hide his face, struck by a bout of shyness. Going from _repress at all costs_ to having everything out in the open would take getting used to.

Before he could splash away, Seonghwa caught him by the wrist and cradled his hand to his chest, raising it to his mouth to kiss his knuckles.

*

“You look like a dragon fruit.”

“That’s disrespectful to the dragon fruits,” Wooyoung said, stepping off the raised front of the temple to meet them. He raised his arms, and the sleeves fanned out, serrated scraps of fabric fluttering in the breeze.

"Are you alright to walk?" Seonghwa asked. He hovered by one of his elbows, Yeosang on his other side. Wooyoung had spent the morning kneeling with the sun priests inside their temple, supplying sticks of incense and ingredients after the regular minister fell ill. 

Wooyoung snorted at both of them. "_Yes_, hyung - and gukgong," just to see Yeosang wrinkle his nose in distaste. 

San met them down the stretch of beach, manning the stall of tiny clay ships in a trough. With each gust of wind, the the children around it squealed in delight. It was midsummer, the festival a smattering of tents on the dunes.

San managed to extricate himself to wander around with them. He and Wooyoung looped easy arms around each other’s waists as if it isn’t broiling hot beneath the sun. Yeosang shook his head in mutual agreement with Seonghwa behind their backs. 

“We should go on one of those.” San nodded at the round-bellied boats in the distance. 

Yeosang considered the people paddling hard against the surf. “I’m too sore for that,” he said without thinking. 

Seonghwa choked on air. San screeched. “I didn't need to know that!”

“I meant my shoulders,” Yeosang said, pinching his nose. He had taken up the bow and arrow again, knowing the skill would rot on the shelf if he did nothing about it. He and Seonghwa set up targets and, more recently, tossed sand bags in the training yard after dinner, making stupid bets on how many they could hit. If they did other strenuous activities after _that, _that was between them. 

Wooyoung and San dashed away to queue up for the boats, splashing in the high tide. Seonghwa found a spot beneath the fig trees, Yeosang weaving through the stalls and buffeted by a swarm of advisors and their families before finding a glass of tea for Seonghwa, adorned with a paper chrysanthemum, and a cup of chilled coffee for himself. 

He slipped off his sandals to dig his toes in the sand, relishing the relative coolness. Beside him, Seonghwa fanned himself with a pamphlet. He was at a perfect angle for Yeosang to tug his head into his lap and run a hand through his hair, reveling in the fact that he can. 

On the other side of the orchard, a bard plucked at a zither. A few people swayed around him, feet bare. The nearest family was too busy with their children running amok to pay he and Seonghwa any heed. 

“_Son of the waves, off to war,_” the bard sang. His voice was reedy and rolled into an off-key crescendo. “_Son of the forest, in a glade._”

“I hope this isn’t what I think it is,” Seonghwa mumbled.

“_Fire in their hearts, well met under trees of ash—_”

“I’m sure Jongho will be happy to save us with his songs,” Yeosang whispered back. The boy had sent a bird ahead of his ship’s landfall, saying that he would be arriving by the end of the week. 

“His voice, yes. But his lyrics?” 

Yeosang smothered a laugh in his hand, remembering that week with their friends before their wedding. Both of them had been a pile of nerves but hid it well. “I see your point.” 

The afternoon wound down, Yeosang drifting off in his seat, shadows lengthening, herons flapping along. At one point Wooyoung and San emerged, soaking wet, and raced off to sail in a larger boat. 

The bard finished his last song in a flourish. They clapped with the rest of the audience, then scattered off to the shoreline, no longer shimmering with heat. They squatted and tracked the crabs scuttling in the tidepools. 

Out of the blue, Seonghwa pressed a quick kiss to Yeosang's lips.

“I couldn’t resist,” he said, eyes crinkled. 

"Greasy." Yeosang lifted a hand to his lips, tingling where they parted. 

The sea was a depthless green, dazed with gold, the rocks skimmed with tufts of foam. Salt in the sand, ropes of seaweed on the beach; the horizon stretched out as far as he could see. 

He kissed Seonghwa back on the way home. 

**Author's Note:**

> new atiny here, & seongsang is beautiful im-
> 
> thank you for reading!!


End file.
